Beautiful Stories from ShakespeareShakespeare, William
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Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
Children's literature; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
When Hermia woke she found Lysander gone, and wandered about the wood
trying to find him. Puck went back and told Oberon what he had done,
and Oberon soon found that he had made a mistake, and set about looking
for Demetrius, and having found him, put some of the juice on his eyes.
And the first thing Demetrius saw when he woke was also Helena. So now
Demetrius and Lysander were both following her through the wood, and it
was Hermia's turn to follow her lover as Helena had done before. The
end of it was that Helena and Hermia began to quarrel, and Demetrius and
Lysander went off to fight. Oberon was very sorry to see his kind scheme
to help these lovers turn out so badly. So he said to Puck--
“These two young men are going to fight. You must overhang the night
with drooping fog, and lead them so astray, that one will never find the
other. When they are tired out, they will fall asleep. Then drop this
other herb on Lysander's eyes. That will give him his old sight and his
old love. Then each man will have the lady who loves him, and they will
all think that this has been only a Midsummer Night's Dream. Then when
this is done, all will be well with them.”
So Puck went and did as he was told, and when the two had fallen asleep
without meeting each other, Puck poured the juice on Lysander's eyes,
and said:--
“When thou wakest,
Thou takest
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye:
Jack shall have Jill;
Nought shall go ill.”
Meanwhile Oberon found Titania asleep on a bank where grew wild thyme,
oxlips, and violets, and woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine. There
Titania always slept a part of the night, wrapped in the enameled skin
of a snake. Oberon stooped over her and laid the juice on her eyes,
saying:--
“What thou seest when thou wake,
Do it for thy true love take.”
Now, it happened that when Titania woke the first thing she saw was a
stupid clown, one of a party of players who had come out into the wood
to rehearse their play. This clown had met with Puck, who had clapped
an ass's head on his shoulders so that it looked as if it grew there.
Directly Titania woke and saw this dreadful monster, she said, “What
angel is this? Are you as wise as you are beautiful?”
“If I am wise enough to find my way out of this wood, that's enough for
me,” said the foolish clown.
“Do not desire to go out of the wood,” said Titania. The spell of the
love-juice was on her, and to her the clown seemed the most beautiful
and delightful creature on all the earth. “I love you,” she went on.
“Come with me, and I will give you fairies to attend on you.”
So she called four fairies, whose names were Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth,
and Mustardseed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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